Lee Kyun-young (1951-1996) was a South Korean novelist and historian.
1. Life
Born in Gwangyang, South Jeolla Province, Lee Kyun-young studied history at Hanyang University and became a professor of Korean History at Dongduk Women's University. As a scholar, he maintained a radical liberalist perspective in interpreting modern Korean history. Lee made his literary debut in 1977 when his short story "Baramnan dosi" (바람난 도시 Scandalous City) won the Dong-a Ilbo New Writer's Contest.
By winning the Yi Sang Literary Award for “Eoduun gieogui jeopyeon” (어두운 기억의 저편 The Other Side of Dark Remembrance) in 1984, Lee also secured a place in the Korean literary world. His important fictional works include the short story collection Meolli inneun bit (멀리 있는 빛 The Faraway Light) and the novel Nojawa jangjaui nara (노자와 장자의 나라 The Country of Laozi and Zhuangzi.) Lee died in 1996 due to a car accident.
2. Writing
From 1986 until his untimely death, Lee was an editor of the quarterly Critical Review of History published by the Institute for Korean Historical Studies. Lee primarily focused on the Korean independence movement. In 1993 he published Singanhoe yeongu (신간회 연구 On the National United Front, Shinganhoe), a culmination of 13 years of research on the independence group Singanhoe, which earned him the Danjae Award. The same year, he published his second novel, Nojawa jangjaui nara. His third novel, Namunipdeureun grieun bulbiteul mandeunda (나뭇잎들은 그리운 불빛을 만든다 The Leaves Make Lights of Longing), was published posthumously. Lee also wrote children's books such as Museoun chum (무서운 춤 Scary Dance) and Gyeoul kkumui saeksang (겨울 꿈의 색상 Colors of a Winter's Dream).
Lee Kyun-young's fiction has three distinctive aspects. First, his subjects and themes often focus on people who have been dispossessed and are wandering. Second, the stories tend to have an autobiographical style—that is, they are the life story of one man or a family. Finally, like many writers of the era, Lee Kyun-young's stories have a profound awareness of the painful history of Korea. Lee's best-known work in English, The Other Side of Dark Remembrance, falls into the fiction genre dealing with the division of North and South Korea. Stories of this genre often hold ideological conflicts and their ramifications at their center; rather than treating these issues upfront, however, The Other Side of Dark Remembrance follows the mundane yet confused life of a metropolitan salaried man. During the process of retracing important contract documents he lost while drunk, the protagonist unexpectedly comes face to face with a dark memory submerged in the subconsciousness of his common bourgeois being. This remembrance of a heartbreaking separation caused by the Korean War ultimately impels him to confront the long-repressed injunction of his mother's last words.
